Auction Legal Fees Rip Off

[tojustay 0]

Hello All

Please be very careful when buying from Barnard Marcus Auction .I missed a line in their rouge special condition. This is day light robbery and I am paying just £3000 for the land that is infact  i recently discovered worth nothing and may never worth anything .

 

Auctioner fee £1150  (paid)

10% deposit  or £3000  (paid) 

Search fee =£650 +vat

legal fee =£3000

So basically they want us to buy a land worth £3000 and pay legal fees of £4650 plus auctioner fee of £1150 make a total fee of £5800 to buy a land worth £3000. This is fraud and day light robbery.

If anyone can help please contact me at owunics@gmail.com. I really need help .i want to fight this.

 

[dennis hughes 60]

17 hours ago, tojustay said:

I missed a line in their rouge special condition.

Sorry, not trying to be harsh, but you messed up. All the fees were there for you to find and evaluate. The fact that you missed it is not really BM's fault.

The 'special conditions' are usually where all the nasties are. Paying the vendor's solicitors fees, search fees, coffee and doughnut costs - just about anything they like.

Many people will give the legal pack to their solicitor to peruse, which might have prevented you bidding.

As an aside, you say the land that you purchased is "worthless" - how so? Surely you saw value in the land before bidding (ignore the fee question)? 

[tojustay 0]

3 hours ago, dennis hughes said:

Sorry, not trying to be harsh, but you messed up. All the fees were there for you to find and evaluate. The fact that you missed it is not really BM's fault.

The 'special conditions' are usually where all the nasties are. Paying the vendor's solicitors fees, search fees, coffee and doughnut costs - just about anything they like.

Many people will give the legal pack to their solicitor to peruse, which might have prevented you bidding.

As an aside, you say the land that you purchased is "worthless" - how so? Surely you saw value in the land before bidding (ignore the fee question)? 

I will not say I messed up although I have used the phrase in my opening  comment . The packs kept changing and that is where I missed it. The truth of the matter is that the auction market  urgently need regulation as it is evident that auction platforms are  conspiring with rogue solicitors to rip people off .  The fact that you write whatever you like in a contract  to favor you  the seller does not mean it cannot be challenged under "unfair terms of contract" My loose is around 4k   and i have  read where people have lost over £20,000   to rouge solicitors and  auction platforms. 

"One thing that strikes me is that in the contract, the seller ask the buyer to pay what appear to be "unfair terms", that is the buyer is expected to pay in addition to the auction house fee (£3000ish) certain charges to the buyer which the seller incurred in selling the house:

For example

- the sellers auction fee (approx £1500 + £900) + VAT

- land title / registration search and other fees (approx £250 - £300),

- seller legal fees (£500 - £1000) + VAT,

- other "administrative" fees incurred in selling the house (£1000-2000) + VAT

 

This adds a hefty amount onto a purchase. Surely the buyer can reject these fees as unfair because:

 

a) they were not agreed by both parties (though does bidding show acceptance of the contract?),

b) the reality of not paying the sellers fees does not put the seller at that great a loss, and

c) the owner of the house has the unfair advantage to say "pay the fees or (despite paying x - 4ish thousand) you don't get the house and you lose your deposit of 10% of auction price." putting the buyer at great disadvantage.

I would also hazard a guess that the buyer has the right to see invoices that justify the charges?

 

I don't know of other places where the buyer is responsible for seller fees?"

Do people here really think  these terms are fair and nothing wrong with them? 

[dennis hughes 60]

Sorry dude. This is the way it is, rightly or wrongly.

Potential purchasers factor all these costs into their numbers before arriving at a maximum bid.

Same with the modern method of auction, the reservation fee is factored in.

 

[alex wright 0]

I also have noticed these sometimes substantial fees appearing in the costs for certain properties more and more at certain auction houses, frequently those with very low guide prices. As with the mesage from the initial post, the buyer must ensure they know what they are commiting to before registering and bidding, this is harder when full legal packs appear late in the day but naivity could land you with considerable more expenses than you expected. For a few hundred quid your solicitor would have a look through the legal pack pre auction and make you aware of any obvious nasties which would enable you to bid with confidence to a sensible level.